{"id":564805,"date":"2026-07-29T06:16:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/564805\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:16:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:16:25","slug":"i-gave-chatgpt-my-medical-records-it-was-less-scary-and-more-useful-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/564805\/","title":{"rendered":"I gave ChatGPT my medical records. It was less scary\u2014and more useful\u2014than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary created by Smart Answers AI<\/p>\n

In summary:PCWorld reports on OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT Health, which allows U.S. users to share medical records and Apple Health data with granular privacy controls.The AI service helps users understand medical terminology and provides context for health data, though it mirrors rather than replaces doctor\u2019s advice.While useful for medical explanations, the author found ChatGPT Health interesting but not essential, with lingering privacy concerns about chat history retention.<\/p>\n

For obvious reasons, allowing ChatGPT to give medical advice is fraught with controversy. Is it really a good idea to trust a large language model with our health? What if it hallucinates, or misdiagnoses clear warning signs (as a just-filed lawsuit alleges<\/a>)? And can we trust AI chatbots with our private medical data?<\/p>\n

Those are all good causes for concern, but they\u2019re not stopping OpenAI from rolling out ChatGPT\u2019s new health-oriented features<\/a> to all U.S. users. First introduced earlier this year, ChatGPT Health can \u2014 with your permission \u2014 tap into a variety of medical data sources, ranging from telemetry from the Apple Health app to records from your doctor, and (as OpenAI carefully words it) help you \u201cunderstand your information in context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, it just so happens that hours before OpenAI announced its broader ChatGPT Health rollout, I had my annual physical. It was a routine visit (no major problems, phew!), and I\u2019m lucky to have a general practitioner who\u2019s friendly, down to earth, and clear about his findings. Among his directives: watch my diet, exercise more, and cut back on the cocktails. (Oh, c\u2019mon, Doc!)<\/p>\n

Normally, I wouldn\u2019t feel the need to feed my checkup details to an AI chatbot; generally speaking, I only like knowing what I need to know about my various health conditions. But this is PCWorld, and I cover AI for a living, so I took a deep breath and agreed to let ChatGPT check my chart.<\/p>\n

Just to be clear, right up front: This isn\u2019t a full review, and I am in no way suggesting you try ChatGPT Health yourself unless you really want to. While the service uses a secure portal for linking medical records to ChatGPT and permissions controls abound, I believe there are still plenty of privacy concerns, and by no means should ChatGPT\u2019s musings be confused with the diagnosis of a doctor (as OpenAI is quick to say). The only reason I\u2019m wading into ChatGPT Health is so you can sneak a peek at my experience.<\/p>\n

With that lengthy preamble, I\u2019ll start with the nuts and bolts. Navigating to the \u201cHealth\u201d menu item in the ChatGPT sidebar (iOS and web only for now, and again, just for U.S. users), a connection wizard guided me through the options, including connecting Apple Health and my healthcare provider.<\/p>\n

For each health source you connect, you must decide precisely which data you\u2019d like to share, and the options are quite granular. With Apple Health, for example, you could choose to share your daily steps but not your stand minutes, or pick your heart rate but exclude heart rate variability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ChatGPT<\/p>\n

You can choose precisely what medical data gets shared with ChatGPT Health, and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Ben Patterson\/Foundry<\/p>\n

The same goes with your health provider; mine, for instance, had individual check-off sections for allergies, care plans and clinical notes, and demographic information, for starters. You can also choose how long you want ChatGPT to have access to your medical data: anywhere from a day to a year.<\/p>\n

Next, ChatGPT Health will follow up with more options, including adding medications and family history details, as well as any current medical conditions you\u2019re experiencing.<\/p>\n

With the updated ChatGPT Health, you don\u2019t have to visit the Health section in the ChatGPT app to discuss your vitals (although you still can if you want to). Instead, ChatGPT can access your health data from any chat. Ask ChatGPT a health question, and a permissions pop-up will appear, with options for \u201cAllow Once,\u201d \u201cAlways Allow,\u201d or \u201cDeny.\u201d If you choose \u201cAllow Once\u201d (as I did), ChatGPT will ping you for permission for subsequent healthcare-related chats.<\/p>\n

\"ChatGPT<\/p>\n

ChatGPT asks you for permission before tapping into your health data.<\/p>\n

Ben Patterson\/Foundry<\/p>\n

In my first conversations with ChatGPT Health, I asked some general questions based on my Apple Health data, including whether it spotted any trends over the past 12 months. We had several back-and-forths about the raw data ChatGPT had access to and the possible types of reports it could compile; indeed, ChatGPT seemed almost timid here, and I had to nudge it (\u201cOK, can you do the annual health review?\u201d) to get its assessment.<\/p>\n

When it finally did come, ChatGPT\u2019s summary was interesting if (to me) not all that surprising: \u201cYour year looks stable overall, with several modest improvements toward the end.\u201d It singled out my lower resting heart rate, higher HRV (a signal for overall cardiovascular health), my faster walking speed, and more frequent exercise over the past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I also got dinged for my sleep patterns: not enough, in a nutshell, although my oxygen saturation has been trending up.<\/p>\n

Next, I moved on to my recent physical. What did all those test results popping in MyChart mean, anyway (and what\u2019s up with the one in the yellow range)? What\u2019s a lymphocyte count, and why is mine a tad low? And how am I doing overall?<\/p>\n

Of course, I already knew the answer to most of these questions, courtesy of my flesh-and-blood doctor (nothing to worry about with this, let\u2019s keep an eye on that). But I do have to say, ChatGPT did a nice job of filling in some of the details and reminding me of others, like the fact that I need a pneumonia vaccine, or that my LDL levels (for \u201cbad\u201d cholesterol) are slightly elevated. \u201cEat with heart health in mind,\u201d ChatGPT said, mirroring my doctor\u2019s advice.<\/p>\n

\"ChatGPT<\/p>\n

ChatGPT did give me some health tips, but nothing that wasn\u2019t already in my doctor\u2019s written assessment plan.<\/p>\n

Ben Patterson\/Foundry<\/p>\n

Indeed, all of ChatGPT\u2019s observations were grounded in my doctor\u2019s written assessment plan \u2014 which, I\u2019m sure, is the whole idea behind ChatGPT Health. Nothing I saw in my ChatGPT Health chats was surprising or shocking; instead, it just (as promised) gave me more context, including explanations of medical terminology that I heard my doctor use but hadn\u2019t thought to ask about.<\/p>\n

Now, I should point out that while I can revoke ChatGPT\u2019s permission to access my health data at any time, my chats with ChatGPT about my health will remain unless I delete them manually, meaning you\u2019d have to be scrupulously about pruning your past conversations to wipe your medical details completely from the chatbot\u2019s memory. (You could, of course, restrict health-related chats to temporary conversations that are immediately deleted once closed.)<\/p>\n

Overall, I\u2019d call my (brief) experience with ChatGPT Health to be interesting but not all that essential. I should note that I didn\u2019t spot anything all that dubious, with most of its judgement calls and observations quickly followed by \u201ccheck with your doctor\u201d hedging. And ChatGPT did remind me of that pneumonia shot I\u2019m supposed to take, so that goes in the \u201cplus\u201d column.<\/p>\n

But would I turn to ChatGPT if I were facing a serious medical condition? Frankly, I\u2019d be more comfortable turning to a physician first. (Then again, my doctor did use an AI note-taking app during my exam, so\u2026)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary created by Smart Answers AI In summary:PCWorld reports on OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT Health, which allows U.S. users to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-564805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}